A number of municipalities around the country, especially in rural areas, are considering public broadband networks as a way to spur development and enterprise. Yet legislators keep drafting laws intended to keep some citizens in the stone age — at least until the telecoms get around to building private networks. [More]

For many people, expressing who they are isn’t just a function of how they dress or act, but what their vehicle’s vanity license plate says. Maybe you rocked “DMBFAN” to show your love for a band or “CATSYAY” for you know, cats, but in Georgia, one man wanted to express his sexuality and is now suing the state for denying him that. [More]

Starting tomorrow, Georgia will begin enforcing a new law intended to compel Amazon and other e-tailers to collect sales tax on purchase in that state. But it looks like Amazon may have a pretty easy work-around. [More]

In Georgia, there is a program called HomeSafe, intended to prevent homeowners who have just lost their jobs and are only a little behind on their mortgage from losing their homes. When someone is accepted into the program, lenders are required to pause foreclosure actions, but that didn’t stop Citi and Freddie Mac from trying to evict one woman. [More]

After you buy food at the grocery store, it’s pretty much yours to do with as you wish, right? But a Kroger manager in Georgia didn’t believe that an elderly customer would just want to hand out food to hungry people, and allegedly attacked the man, losing his job in the process. [More]

The owner of a Chevron gas station and convenience store in Georgia says that when she called the cops to handle an allegedly rude and unruly customer, things got turned around on her and she ended up being the one in cuffs — all because she couldn’t figure out how to operate the security camera system. [More]

It’s like a real-life version of the movie “Chicken Run,” only without Mel Gibson and much, much slower. Near Summerville, Georgia, there is a turtle farm. Thousands of adult turtles, all native species to the southern United States, live in ponds on the property. Thanks to vandals or scrap metal thieves, breaks in the fence have allowed the turtles to wander off the property, taking up residence in surrounding waterways. The operation is something like a hatchery, and about 1,600 of the 2,200 turtles that form its breeding stock have run away. [More]

Just a bit of advice to the shoppers of the world: If a man approaches you at Walmart — or really any retailer — and says he works for America’s Funniest Home Videos and that the show will pay for your stuff if you let him kiss your foot, he’s almost certainly lying. And yet, a teenager in Georgia says she was a sucker for a toe-sucker in disguise. [More]

Back in 1994, a Georgia woman received two county tax bills in the mail — one addressed to her, and a second addressed to a man with the same, incredibly common last name, but whom she’d never heard of and whose address was invalid. She paid off the former immediately and ignored the latter. Little did she know that, 13 years later, this goof by the county would land her in court trying to save her house from being taken away from her. [More]

While no one in Iran can order a computer from a U.S. Apple store — and there are limitations on these electronics being brought into Iran — there is no legal reason a U.S. citizen should be barred from buying an iPad just because she speaks Farsi. And yet customers at Apple stores in Georgia are being told they can’t shop there because the government won’t allow it. [More]

When you see a stretch of road that has been “adopted” by a group or business that helps to remove litter from the highway in return for recognition from the state, the sponsor is often some civic group, union or social club. Occasionally, you get something like the stretch of I-95 near the Pennsylvania/Delaware border sponsored by a gentlemen’s club. But legislators in Georgia now find themselves in a bit of a pickle, having to pick between allowing the Ku Klux Klan to adopt a highway or facing a potentially lengthy and pricey legal battle. [More]

Imagine you’re caught speeding — or driving recklessly, or driving without a license — and you appear in traffic court all set to pay the fine. But then the judge tells you that he’s not only knocking your offense down to a warning, but also discounting your penalty and collecting the lesser amount as “court costs.” You’d probably be very happy. Only problem is, it’s probably illegal and it keeps bad drivers on the road. [More]

Being in college and having an empty wallet tend to go hand-in-hand. A full course load can make it difficult for students to find steady work, and in many college towns the work that’s available isn’t going to pay for very much. But while my fellow students were undergoing (legal) drug trials and donating whatever bodily fluid they could get a few cents for, some in the current generation of cash-strapped collegians are turning to food stamps. [More]